How Hobbs & Shaw Fits into Fast & Furious Universe

The Fast & Furious world is about to explode with its first spinoff starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham as Hobbs & Shaw. The sure-to-be blockbuster spinoff arrives as the next step to the ever-growing and consistently over-the-top franchise, looking to build on the eight Fast & Furious movies which came before it. Written by Fast & Furious franchise veteran Chris Morgan, Hobbs & Shaw offers up the classic Fast & Furious vibe while also standing very much on its own.

“I think you can go and enjoy fresh,” Morgan told ComicBook.com at the world premiere of Hobbs & Shaw. “I think there’s something more special for the fans, but I think it all really comes down to tone. We, for us, with the Fast films and this film, it is always about people who operate with a code, people who operate based on a love and support of family. And whenever there’s a problem, use the craziest action sequence to solve it. We got all those things.”

The Fast & Furious movies have become known for outrageous stunts which simply defy the laws of physics. Each movie seems to make an effort to outdo its predecessor. Hobbs & Shaw is no exception, putting its action stars at the forefront. “Well, we throw Dwayne Johnson out of the Leadenhall building in London, that’s one thing for sure,” Morgan said when asked if the movie offers something fans will never have seen before.

Spawning from a franchise loaded with fan-favorite characters, Hobbs & Shaw did consider including cameos from characters and mega-stars from the rest of the universe. “We’ve always talked about, all the worlds interconnect,” Morgan explained. “The good news about the spinoff is that it happens in our universe, it happens in our timeline. This story will have repercussions down the road, so we always just decide on what is the best way to present the first spinoff to the audience, and you’ll have to wait and see what that is.” Still, he has a big promise: “There’s some surprises in there for you.”

While Hobbs & Shaw return, WWE Superstar and cousin to Dwayne Johnson, Roman Reigns, makes an appearance in the movie with elements of his and Johnson’s WWE careers promised for the movie. “Talk about truly heroic things, right?” Morgan said of Roman Reigns. “So yeah, so Roman is Dwayne’s cousin, and when we were putting together the Hobbs brothers, we knew right away that we wanted to bring him in. And so Dwayne had reached out and said, you’ll have to talk to him about this, but paraphrasing, he’s like, ‘Brother, I know what you’re going through, and whatever, and I want to support you, and we’d love to, at a minimal level, if you want to come in, if it’s fun for you, great, and if not, we want to have action and stuff for you.’ And he came in and he was feeling so good, and such a champ, he was body slamming people in Kauai, throwing, wait till you see the ancient weapons battle in, like the Samoan ancient weapons battle, it’s pretty insane.”

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw hits theaters on August 2.